To think that you can have an ‘easier’ baby if you do the right things?

[isthisunfairth]

I know that some babies quite literally scream and scream. Some have reflux etc and there are reasons why they are harder to look after.

But AIBU to think some people just don’t do what works? I have a close friend who won’t allow her baby to cry at all in their cot. I get it, but obviously that means the baby won’t self settle. That’s her choice. By the time the baby was two, they had a sleep consultant as the marriage was almost broken and hey presto, leaving to cry for a minute then going back in - literally - over three nights solved things. This could have been done from day one, not two years later.

Food… my child won’t eat X. If that’s all that’s on offer first thing in the morning when most hungry, then they will eat it. You have to persevere, surely?

My baby won’t be put down… they might not like it but they can be put down? AIBU to think this approach just feeds into the baby feeling a bit out of control as the parent is literally doing what they want even if it’s not best overall?

I am by NO means a perfect parent and I am genuinely interested in what people think to this. But I have noticed that people have different approaches to their babies obviously, and sometimes I do think problems are made by the parents. AIBU?!

@cardibach

Additionally, I was recently told by someone that my son’s ADHD was caused by trauma he’d experienced 😢 so you can see why giving my kids some extra reassurance might be important to me.

Oh God. I (thankfully) never met parents like you, but I've run into several dog-owners who think they are geniuses at training dogs because their dogs aren't afraid of fireworks. They are not geniuses. They're just lucky they bought pups who aren't sensitive to sound.

But if your children are 'easy' because they learned the hard way that it's no use calling to Mummy for help, then take a bow. Interesting to see if they'll answer your calls from the old age home when that time comes or they'll, hey presto, ignore you to self-settle there.

Who are you say what’s right? I never left my daughter to settle and she sleeps beautifully. No sleep training required.

Maybe your child felt secure being left. Good for you.

Mine is ND and it wouldn’t work for him, even though some posters like the op would say it was my fault for not letting him cry to himself.

Up to a point, yes. I had a friend who, if her toddler turned down a given food, didn't offer it again. Her child ate chocolate buttons and toast for years. But only up to a point - after that it's temperament and its often easier to work with who you've got than to try and mould them to your will.

If you left a baby to cry in a cot "from day one" there would be a huge risk of SIDS compared to sleep training a toddler. I've never heard of anyone sleep training from day one, and don't think it should be done until baby can have solid food for dinner and roll over both ways by themselves.

Why would it? I’m not the one doing the judging. Which you are still doing in that post - talking about others giving less security

Well, my dc have all got special needs so I've no experience of parenting NT children. But dc4 was the only one of mine who slept through the night consistently from 2 months old. Although the paediatrician said I had to wake him up once a night until 6 months to feed him and each feed took 2 hours so I didn't really get more sleep when he was a baby either.

I think a lot of it is down to the personality of the parents. For example one parent might have a baby who sleeps a 5 hour stretch at night and say it's great and they are sleeping through the night while another parent might think it's only sleeping through the night of they sleep for 12 hours. My MIL thinks my dc are incredibly fussy eaters because she expects them to eat any food that's put in front of them. I say they eat well because they eat the main dish which is usually a mild curry, jacket potatoes, roast, pasta bake, spag bol, lasagne etc and then I do at least 3 kinds of veg, usually more, in the steamer and they choose which ones they have and they all eat at least one. Dc2 doesn't like the crispy bit on top of the lasagne, cottage pie etc so I take the top off before I dish his up.

I’m not being defensive at all. I have no skin in the game. DD is 27 and perfectly secure and happy.
What I’m doing is calling out the attitude that if you don’t spend 24/7 with your baby you don’t care enough about them/their happiness/their security.

I was a teen mum with the easiest baby ever. Barely ever cried, always slept through the night from a week old, potty trained like a dream he did not wee himself once, never wet the bed. Such an easy boy. I don't think that was to do with me I think he was just an easy going kid. He's still an easy going teen even though he has autism and adhd.

🙄

Thing is at this point, I guess, you usually have no idea if you're child will later be found to be autistic etc.

As a small baby DS slept very well, after the first few weeks he slept without waking from midnight-7am. He was generally an easy, content, baby. He did feed a lot, but he'd lost 12.5% of his birth weight so I wasn't surprised by that.

But from 6 months DS would not settle on his own, tried leaving him in his cot and resettling - he cried and screamed non stop, 3hrs, 4hrs, on it went. Tried to get him to eat a variety of foods, he would starve rather than eat anything he didn't like.

He still can't go to sleep on his own, he still has a limited diet, he's also been diagnosed as autistic. His sensory issues suggest that he didn't like being in his cot as he wasn't being held - he likes clothing etc to be tight.

So I could have done everything "perfectly" and we'd still have had issues. Maybe different issues, but still issues.

This is a harmful theory and it is not true. You didn't cause your son's ADHD.

Useful video on the topic that came out today:

Me too and everyone even the kindest friends told me I needed to sleep train. I felt like a failure, cried so much. But I listened to my gut and my child is autistic. Imagine how bad I’d have felt if I’d let him cry!!!

Temperament maybe. Or different life circumstances, maybe additional stressors affecting the baby? The same parenting method might work well for one child's temperamemt or circumstances at the time but not for others.

According to our own parents my sister was born when my father worked abroad and they did a lot of travelling. My sister learned to adapt to not having the same routine every day and was an easier going baby. My father's work ended when my mother was pregnant with me two years later and they came back to England where I was born. Their new lifestyle and also the health visitors advice about needing to have a set routine for babies meant my babyhood was a little more regimented, parents were very stressed, and miserable about being back in England and apparently if my meals were late or I didn't get to sleep in time I screamed the place down. Though I do tend towards being quite rigid and do struggle with OCD tendancies (diagnosed) so I expect temperament a huge factor also. This was the early 80s and I think things are different now.

Which is not what that poster said at all, so you’re effectively just arguing with yourself 🤷‍♀️

@BertieBotts

Thank you for posting the video, I’ll watch it in full when I get a minute later. I’m really grateful. Your advice is always very sage!

A baby doesn’t learn to settle themself, they just learn to stop crying because they learn no one will come.

fuck that

A baby can learn to self settle. And isn't left to cry

This is hilarious. With 2 kids too.

Self-soothing/settling is a myth invented by a MADE UP industry, scamming thousands or desperate, vulnerable parents out of their hard earned cash every year. What actually happens, is the child gives up on anyone coming to support them when they are asking for it. Anyone who I know who 'sleep trained' (in fact, MOST people I know with kids did this), had it 'work' initially but then had to continue to redo the 'training' for the foreseeable future.

I would not leave an adult stranger to cry alone in a dark room (unless they clearly asked for that), much less a friend, so I have no idea why parents have such little empathy for infants/toddlers who cannot communicate how distressing they find it. I understand sleep deprivation, been there (still there!!), but that's an obvious part of parenting before you have kids, surely!!

And no, I do not share this opinion with anyone IRL, unless specifically asked, but seeing as this is such a laughable / judgy thread, I thought I'd share.

This is an entirely different case. If the baby is quite content, then wonderful!!

A friend told me that she "wouldn't put up with " DD coming into our room at night (DD was about 4 at the time) and should leave her to cry.
A few years later same friend got a puppy. Someone asked if she was crate training it and she said she planned to, but couldn't bear to hear it whimpering/crying and being left alone (sorry I don't know what unhappy dog noises are called) ...so took into her bedroom to sleep. I reminded her of our previous conversation.. . That funnily enough I didn't like to listen to my toddler/child being distressed on their own!

Babies aren’t developmentally capable of self settling.

And you accuse others of bollocks! This sentence implies that no baby has ever 'self settled', by which jargon I assume you mean 'gone to sleep'.

I must try your approach with my autistic son who would literally rather starve than eat food we can't cope with.

Me too 😂